| Madea Goes to Jail | |
|---|---|
Theatrical release poster |
|
| Directed by | Tyler Perry |
| Produced by | Tyler Perry Reuben Cannon |
| Written by | Tyler Perry |
| Starring | Tyler Perry Keshia Knight Pulliam Derek Luke Robin Coleman Jackson Walker Viola Davis David Mann Tamela J. Mann Sofia Vergara Bobbi Baker |
| Music by | Aaron Zigman |
| Cinematography | Alexander Gruszynski |
| Editing by | Maysie Hoy |
| Studio | Tyler Perry Studios |
| Distributed by | Lionsgate |
| Release date(s) | February 20, 2009 |
| Running time | 103 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $17.5 million[1] |
| Box office | $90,508,336[2] |
Madea Goes to Jail is a 2009 comedy-drama film adaptation written and directed by Tyler Perry, which was based on Perry's 2006 play of the same name. The play and the film deal with Perry's recurring character Madea Simmons going to prison for her uncontrollable anger management problems. The play starred Tyler Perry as Madea, Cassi Davis as Ella Kincaid and Cheryl Pepsii Riley as Wanda.
Contents |
After a high-speed freeway chase (as seen in Meet the Browns) puts Mabel "Madea" Simmons (Tyler Perry) in front of Judge Mablean, her trial is short-lived because the police officers did not mirandize Madea causing the judge to place Madea in an anger management course. After the trial, Brian (Tyler Perry) drives Madea, Mr. Brown (David Mann), and Madea's daughter Cora (Tamela Mann) back home from the court. After returning home, Madea finds a party taking place in her house by her brother, Joe (Tyler Perry). Madea uses a machine gun to scare the party goers away. Meanwhile, assistant district attorney Joshua Hardaway (Derek Luke) is on the fast track to career success. But, Hardaway lands a case too personal to handle - prosecuting a young prostitute and drug addict, Candace Washington (Keshia Knight Pulliam), whom he is already acquainted with. Hardaway asks his fiancée and fellow ADA Linda Davis (Ion Overman) to fill in on his behalf. But when Josh takes Candy out to eat and gives her his card in case she needed any help, Linda fears Josh may be cheating on her. Linda doesn't want Josh spending time with Candy, threatening to leave Josh and telling him he shouldn't be helping people like Candace. Linda believes Josh should only socialize with upper-class people.
In the car, Cora, who is driving, told Madea about her anger management resolutions. During the middle of the conversation, a Cadillac CTS cuts ahead of them. After both of vehicles cross the intersection, Madea smashes her daughter's Chevrolet Uplander into the car ahead, causing it to deviate sharply to the right into the church site. At Dr. Phil's office, Madea consults with him for anger management course, but the consultation came to a bad ending when Madea answered a question with a same question he asked. Back in Madea's house, Madea called Cora to talk about sitting in the beauty salon for over 5 hours. While on the phone, Cora asks for some time with herself, causing Madea to get angrier than before. After Madea hung up the phone, Joe warned her that she will get into trouble if she go to the store, but Madea ignores him and goes anyway. After another incident occurs at a K-mart store involving Madea fork lifting a Pontiac Solstice that took her parking space, Madea gets away from the store as the woman calls her husband, who is a cop, about the incident that Madea had caused. A couple of hours after Madea ruined the woman's car with the forklift, the SWAT team is dispatched to Madea's house and they arrest her. Madea returns to court with Judge Mathis presiding over her case. After he discovered that Madea had a dangerous record, he finally sentenced Madea to prison for 5 to 10 years. Outside the court house, Ellen (Viola Davis) asks Joshua how he knows Candace. He tells Ellen that they were close friends from childhood through college, until one night when he took her to a party. He ended up leaving Candace behind at the party, where a group of his friends gang raped her, causing Joshua to feel heavily sorry for his mistake. Joshua asks Ellen if she could try to help Candace out. She agrees and gets her a job interview in which the interviewer sexually harassed her and she ends up kicking him in the groin and storming out his office.
At the district attorney's office, Joshua's friend, Chuck (RonReaco Lee), another lawyer, runs into Linda, whom he discovers is falsifying Candace's file to deliberately get her sent to prison, and apparently has been doing this with other defendants as well, including Madea and Candace's friend Donna. Linda tells him to keep his mouth shut or she'll tell the head ADA that Chuck cheated on his bar exam to get his job.
Candace runs away from Josh's apartment and is back on the streets working as a prostitute until she gets picked up by an undercover cop. When Candace ends up in prison, she discovers Donna (Vanessa Ferlito) and Madea are there as well. While in prison, Madea befriends Candace, protecting her in a "motherly" way, and fights with Big Sal (Robin Coleman) who always flirting with and sexually harassing Candace. Candace, Madea, and Donna all attend a class taught by Ellen at the prison, mostly to get time off of their sentences.
On Joshua's wedding day, Chuck, who is Joshua's best man at the wedding, tells Joshua that Linda had falsified Candace's file to get her sent to prison and away from Joshua. During the wedding ceremony, Joshua tells the entire congregation with their boss in attendance what Linda did. Josh leaves Linda at the altar while still in his wedding tuxedo. He then rushes to the prison where he kisses Candace and admits that he loves her. Because of the now-revealed news of Linda's tampering with client files, there is a public outcry and a protest movement gains momentum to set Madea, Candace, and the others free. Candace, Madea, and some other women that Linda prosecuted have their convictions overturned and are released, and it is revealed that Linda will go to prison for her crimes. Madea goes home with Mr. Brown, Cora, and Brian along with Candace going home with Joshua.
The film received mixed to negative reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 28% of critics gave positive reviews based on 42 reviews with an average score of 4.9/10.[3] Another review aggretator, Metacritic gave the film a 50 approval rating out of 100 rating.[4]
Sam Adams of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 2.5/4 stars and wrote that "if the movie is a mess, it's a purposeful mess, cannily, if not artfully, pushing all the right buttons to ensure Perry will be back for another round."[5]
According to a New York Times review,[6] the film gives Madea herself a much more central role than some of the previous Madea movies, in some of which she is merely a commentator on events.
The Boston Globe reports that "(Madea's) character epitomizes Perry's ongoing commitment to dramatizing as many rungs on the ladder of the black experience as he can. His aim never produces a completely satisfying or consistently competent-looking movie (his heart's in the right place, if not his camerawork)."[7]
On its opening weekend, the film opened at #1, and grossed $41,030,947 (2,032 theaters, $20,192 average), the biggest Friday to Sunday take since Twilight in November 2008. It broke Madea's Family Reunion weekend gross at $30 million as the highest weekend gross for a Tyler Perry film. It broke Saw III's record at $33 million for the highest weekend gross for Lionsgate Entertainment. "We were cautiously optimistic we could do 30-plus," Steve Rothenberg said.[8] On its second weekend, it dropped 61 percent, but remained at #1 grossing another $16,175,926 (2,052 theaters, $7,883 average), bringing the 10-day gross to $64,525,548.[9] The film closed on April 23, 2009 with a final domestic gross of $90,508,336.[2]
An exclusive preview was included on the cinematic release of Tyler Perry's The Family That Preys.
Madea Goes to Jail was released on June 16, 2009 on DVD. According to DVDTown, the DVD included six behind-the-scenes featurettes. No Blu-ray version was released. As of July 12, 2009, 1,125,422 DVD units have been sold, gathering revenue of $18,223,621.[10]
The play starts with the scenes of the townthe play was being shot from and scenes from the plays "I Can Do Bad All By Myself", "Diary of a Mad Black Woman", "Madea's Family Reunion", and "Madea's Class Reunion" then it shows Madea being chased by cops.
The play opens on Vanessa, an aspiring business student whose stress over school (and natural disposition) leads her to be tempestuous towards the people who come and go throughout the scene. Her husband is Sonny Andrews, the child of Madea's deceased sister, Irene. He enters looking for his work shirt, as he is on his way to the prison to work one of many long shifts to pay for Vanessa's schooling and support their child, who is never seen but in the bedroom upstairs. Vanessa refuses to help him, insisting on completing her studying. Ella Kincaid, Madea's best friend and next door neighbor, enters the house asking for Madea (Tyler Perry), who is absent. Unknown to the rest, Madea has been arrested at Conia's for not paying for her gas, and is currently in custody at the prison where Sonny works. Ella notices Vanessa's ambivalence over her husband's dilemma, and chastises her for her negligence as a wife and mother, insisting that a real woman takes care of her man, cooks him breakfast, irons his clothes, and doesn't trifle with school, though Vanessa's counter to this is to remind Ella of her current single relationship status. Nate, Sonny's Jamaican boss and friend, comes to the house to drive Sonny to work, and remains in the living room for Ella to ogle while Sonny tries to placate his flustered wife upstairs, promising her some loving and affection after her returns from work. He leaves with Nate.
Ella receives a phone call at Madea's house with information that Madea is in jail, and the scene cuts.
Meanwhile, at the jail, we see Sonny getting ready for work where he sees long time friend, Wanda, who is now the head Defense Attorney at the prison and she and Sonny had a bet on a game and she won and he never paid up, because Wanda and Sonny quit calling each other (Wanda stopped calling Sonny because she was making a lot of money and Sonny quit calling her because he started going out with Vanessa), Wanda wanted to know what ever happened to Vanessa and Leo (LaVan Davis, Cassi Davis's husband, who appeared in Tyler Perry's House of Payne as Curtis Payne) revealed that he married her, Wanda later explained about she and her husband got divorced 3 years ago, but it was okay because she got saved and he wanted to be free, so she freed him. After Wanda left, Leo explained that all the ladies, except Madea, were all calm. Madea, later, came in the jail after being left in the yard and tells Sonny that Leo was trying to rape her. She tells Sonny about the conya's incident, and about the envolope that has enough money for her bail that is written "Seal-it, Pasta Pead-it" and he go gets the envolope to pay for her bail. She later meets Chico, a woman with 3 boys (one in jail, one "strung out", and one dead) that she didn't care about and they didn't care about her and with no hope, and Katie (Judy Peterson, who appeared in Madea's Class Reunion as Cora's friend, Diana) who has been in jail for nine years because of her ex-husband (Ron Andrews), who is a pimp that tried to hurt his and Katie's daughter (Anndretta Lyle) and Katie stabbed him, but now that since she's in jail, her daughter has been continuously jumping from foster home to foster home. Katie's daughter, Toni, comes to visit and is shown to have a nasty attitude and when she gets one with Madea, she stabs her with her cigarette. Ella comes by and right after Toni leaves, she, Madea, and Katie play a game of cards. Later, we see Jeremy and Katie's ex-husband,Pete the Pimp, and after bail is made for Madea she decides to take care of Toni until Katie gets out of jail. Once Madea is back at home, she notices a strange perfume on the clothes she washed, believing Vanessa was responsible. Ella stops by and tells Madea she has a date with Leo. She asks about Toni and Madea reveals she has been disobedient. Madea gave Toni Cora's old dresses to wear for school, but Toni wears a mini skirt, red boots, a pink top and jacket. Madea becomes annoyed when Toni doesn't speak to neither her or Ella. Toni has an attitude toward Madea and Ella and Madea calls her the Seed of Chucky. Toni says that if Madea touches her, she'll call the police. Madea grabs a bag of belts and choose one to spank Toni with it. She makes Toni put on the dress. She does.
|
|||||||||||||||||